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DEVELOPER Stockland has been forced to defend the apparent slow going of its proposed Kawana Town Centre.

A Stockland spokesman said in 2005 that it planned to start master-planning all elements of its Kawana Waters holdings in early 2006, with a view to start bringing them all on line in 2007.

But almost five years on, the company is yet to submit the master plan for the much-anticipated town centre. The council has also defended the project, saying “we are basically on schedule”.

A Stockland spokeswoman said: “We are still working through our master plan and we are working closely with council on that, to finalise the details of it.

“Obviously things do take time and it's important that we put the time and effort into making sure we do things thoroughly and rigorously.”

The spokeswoman said there was no timeframe for the lodgement of the master plan, and details of the project would not be provided until that time.

Stockland has previously said the town centre would include a shopping centre the size of Kawana Shoppingworld, a hotel, commercial offices and about 300 apartments – all on a 27-hectare site between Lake Kawana and the Kawana Way.

State member for Kawana Jarrod Bleijie suspected the plan might be lodged within two weeks.

He said the global financial crisis might have slowed the development.

Mr Bleijie said he hoped the plan had “real connections” to the proposed health precinct. The nearby health precinct will include the proposed Sunshine Coast University Hospital and a new private hospital.

The council's project director urban development, Ron Piper, said Stockland wanted to revisit the development agreement because of the raft of current and planned projects in Kawana – including the Birtinya Island residential community.

“About now is when I would have expected it (the town centre) to be coming out of the ground,” he said.

“We are basically on schedule.”

Local councillor Anna Grosskreutz said she had no problem with the time it was taking to lodge the town centre master plan.

“Council has been releasing stages around the Birtinya Island area and we recently signed off on stage two, which gives us a couple of years of housing stock to develop,” she said.